"Hark! hear the drums!" she murmured. Far down Broadway the British drums sounded, nearer, nearer, now loud along Dock Street, now lost in Queen, then swinging west by north they came up Broad, into Wall; and I could hear the fifes shrilling out, "The World turned Upside-down," and the measured tread of the patrol, marching to the Upper Barracks and the Prison.
The drummers wheeled into Broadway beneath our windows; leaning over I saw them pass, and I was aware of something else, too—a great strapping figure in a drover's smock, watching the British drums from the side path across the way—my friend of Nassau Street—and clinging to his arm, a little withered man, wrinkled, mild-eyed, clad also like a drover, and snapping his bull-whip to accent the rhythm of the rolling drums.
"I think I shall go down," said a soft voice beside me; "pray do not move, Mr. Renault, you are so picturesque in silhouette against the sunset—and I hear that silhouettes are so fashionable in New York fopdom."
I bowed; she held out her hand—just a trifle, as she passed me, the gesture of a coquette or of perfect innocence—and I touched it lightly with finger-tip and lip.
"Until supper," she said—"and, Mr. Renault, do you suppose we shall have bread for supper?"
"Why not?" I asked, all unsuspicious.
"Because I fancied flour might be scarce in New York"—she glanced at my unpowdered head, then fled, her blue eyes full of laughter.
It is true that all hair powder is made of flour, but I did not use it like a Hessian. And I looked after her with an uncertain smile and with a respect born of experience and grave uncertainty.
CHAPTER II